


Here Come the Dreams of You and Me

by wishandripen



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:23:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9601145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishandripen/pseuds/wishandripen
Summary: My collected works for tumblr user softkent's 14 Days of Love fic-a-thon. Starting at Day 4 because I was getting turnt in Mexico City for the first three days. Pairings and characters vary from chapter to chapter.





	1. Day Four: Black Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric's always known he has to repress his magic for fear of doing something terrible without knowing it. Now he may have done just that: Eric's positive he's accidentally caused Jack to fall in love with him via magic, and now he's got to make Jack snap out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Four of tumblr user softkent's [ 14 Days of Love fic-a-thon](http://softkent.tumblr.com/love-fest): Love Spells!  
> This chapter is Zimbits, and major characters include Bitty and Jack.  
> Title is from Little Mix's song of the same name, [ Black Magic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv9OOOT4GV0)

Eric’s always known he has magic; growing up in the South, he had to repress it just like his figure skating and sexuality. His moo-maw always warned him about the dangers of making things happen that he ain’t never meant, about accidentally poisoning somebody you hated or influencing the outcome of an important competition. It was much better, according to her, to never feel too openly or want too much, because you might change the world without knowing it.

Eric has, for the most part, followed her instructions. He’s been perfectly sweet and nice and bottled-up for the better part of his life, at this point, and he likes to think that keeping his magic under control has been old hat. Or rather, had been.

Something is wrong, now. Something on the SMH is off, and Bitty has a sinking feeling it’s his own fault. Because Eric is pretty sure that Jack Zimmermann likes him. Not the way he’s bros with Shitty or holds a pact of Canadian solidarity with Ransom, but… _likes him,_ likes him. Jack keeps being nice, and friendly, and actually emoting, and sometimes Jack’s eyes go soft around Eric in a way that he’s never seen with anyone else. None of it is familiar. None of it is normal.

Eric must be doing something inadvertently, casting a love spell with nothing but his own misguided crush. And he might not know much about magic, but Eric’s pretty sure that that doesn’t fall under Shitty’s uncoerced, enthusiastic consent rules.

  
He has to put a stop to this, whatever “this” is. Even if it means Jack goes back to the way he was when they first met, even if Jack never looks at him like he matters or gives him an encouraging fist bump or chirps him about his procrastination.

Eric tries everything he can think of, eliminating variables the way he learned in high-school chemistry. The obvious place to start is with the pies.“Made with love” isn’t just a phrase, sometimes. But refusing to give Jack pie for a week “on account of your diet” just gets Eric an approving nod the first time. Worse, when he keeps deliberately withholding pie, Jack starts smiling, as if the two of them have an inside joke now. It’s a quiet little grin that makes Eric’s knees a little wobbly.

So, obviously, the pie was a bust, and Eric is reinstating Jack’s baked-good privileges immediately.

The next thing to eliminate is spending time together. Eric ignores Jack as best he can when they study, talks to other people in Professor Atley’s class, and goes to as many alcohol-based events as possible. Jack’s eyes look a little droopier, but they don’t lose that softness when he’s looking at Eric. Worse, Eric’s fixating on Jack’s sad, soft, droopy eyes, and that can’t be good for either of them.  

Now, Eric didn’t want to screw with their on-ice chemistry, nor refuse help he actually needs, but the next logical step is to eliminate physical contact. And that, above all else, means no more checking practice. No early mornings waking up and hating Jack’s entire being for a few minutes. No getting slammed into the boards and trying to skate through his sudden panic, but then again, no watching the sunrise from inside Faber. No being with Jack, plain and simple.

And worst of all, he’ll have to straight-up tell Jack that he doesn’t want to do practice anymore.

“So, Jack,” Eric says, “I think I’ve improved a lot as a player, and since you’ve got so many responsibilities this year, I think it would be better for me not to waste your time with practice that you’re not getting anything out of. What do you think?”

Señor Bunny flops a little from where Eric had placed him as a trial audience.

Eric is so screwed.

He avoids the situation for a good week, finding ways to just plain not be around when Jack is at the Haus, and barely responding during skates. Eric’s pretty sure the other players have figured out something’s going on, but nobody’s said anything to his face about it yet.

Finally, the day before checking practice rolls around. Eric corners Jack in the kitchen while Lardo has class and the boys are out on a beer run.

“So,” he says, “I’ve been thinking, and it’d probably be better if we stopped doing checking practice. I mean,” he adds a little frantically, as Jack’s expression darkens, “you’ve got so much on your plate this semester, and I’ve improved as a player, I really have, I’m not even sure I need it anymore! So it’s probably best for both of us if we just… don’t go?”

“What’s going on, Bittle?” Jack says.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?”

Jack makes a vague gesture. “This thing you do. You smile and tell a nicer version of the truth, sometimes even lies, whenever you talk about yourself. I don’t know why, but you’re bullshitting right now, and I’d rather you not.”

“..I…” Eric doesn’t really have anything to say to that.

“If you’re gonna lie, I don’t want to hear it.”

Eric sighs. Might as well let it all out. “You know how I can just make pies sort of appear? And how I can do a perfect axel in hockey skates, and how I cleaned up the Haus so fast? I kind of have magic. And, well, there’s no good way to say this, but. I may, accidentally, have used it. A little. On you.”

“But I don’t feel any different,” Jack says, frowning. “I knew a guy in juniors who turned into a cat once, and he said he was all pins and needles the day before.”

“It has to be magic, though.” Eric tells him. “Things like this don’t just happen!”

“Things like what?”

“Like you going from hating my guts to respecting me as a linemate. Like you breaking your diet for my pie whenever I give you a piece. Like you, I don’t know, liking me?” Eric finishes, feeling distinctly awkward.

Jack’s frowning again. “You thought that I only like you because you did something with magic that you can’t even explain?”

“Not… not just liking me,” Eric replies. In case his intentions do matter, he’s praying that the floor will swallow him up before he finishes the statement. “ _Like_ -liking me.”

“Oh,” Jack says. “Huh.”

Eric waits a moment, in case the floor was listening. “Yeah,” he says, miserably, and turns to go. He gets all the way to his room and shuts himself in, preparing a playlist that’s really just the sad parts of The Pinkprint, before there’s a clatter on the stairs and a voice at the door.

“Bittle? Would you please let me in?”

And against his better judgment, Eric does, because he’d bet anything Jack is giving him the soft droopy eyes on the other side of the door. He’s so weak.

Jack crosses the room and comes right up to Eric, gazing at him with eyes that are not only droopy but determined. “I hadn’t thought about you that way before, but that doesn’t mean I can’t. It’s just that we’re teammates, and the captaincy gives me some authority over you. It could’ve gotten weird, you know?”

Bitty knows with every fiber of his being how weird things have gotten. He manages a nod.

“But now I’m not going to be here much longer, I know you much better, and I think… well. I might just like-like you. Not because of any magic you have, but because of you. And if you’re up for it, someday we might progress to full-on love-love.”

There’s a new smile on Jack’s face, earnest and warm, and it’s so dazzling that Eric almost doesn’t realize he’s just been chirped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have Bitty listening to Nicki not Beyonce, because a) it's impossible to be sad while listening to Beyonce and b) the boy has diverse musical tastes. Let him live. Let him play some upbeat hip-hop that Queen Bey has never touched for once in his life.  
> Also, featuring the one thing I like about hockey RPF: you can take any random-ass piece of magic and somebody will know somebody it happened to in Juniors once.


	2. Day Five: Nobody Hurts You Like Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack Zimmermann has always been terrified of the idea of a soulmate. He figures anybody who feels what he feels and knows what the inside of his head is like is never going to stick around, destiny or no. He never imagined he'd be the one up and abandoning people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Five of tumblr user softkent's [ 14 Days of Love fic-a-thon](http://softkent.tumblr.com/love-fest): Soulmates!  
> This chapter is sad Pimms, and main characters include Jack and Parse.  
> Title is from [ "That Girl"](/www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNmRCGMFYrQ) by Tegan and Sara.

Jack’s always been a little scared of the idea of a soulmate, somebody who can feel his feelings and knows what he’s thinking. Anybody who knows what the inside of Jack’s head is like, Jack thinks, won’t want to stay for long, destiny be damned. He figures the “Nice pass, Zimms,” written on his right hip means his potential soulmate is a teammate. It’s probably just a platonic soulmate, then, Jack decides. It’s not uncommon for team athletes to find their soulmate on their line, and that normally heralds the beginning of a beautiful, record-smashing friendship.

Jack ought to be happy that he’s almost guaranteed a best friend who will understand hockey and Jack perfectly, but somehow he can’t feel excited. It just seems like more pressure on his good days, and on his bad days it’s another reason to catastrophize. Oh, look at the Zimmermann kid. Bad Bob’s son, hockey prodigy, backed up by a perfect teammate, and he’ll still never fucking amount to anything. Waste of a soulmate, really.

It’s impossible to break a soul bond, and you only get the one, so there’s no point trying not to meet the person. Instead, he tries not to get too close to any of the boys on his teams. It’s not that hard; he’s the best by a mile on whatever team he’s on. Sure, there are boys who idolize Jack, but nobody’s on his level. Nobody even comes close.

Then there’s Kent. Jack’s whole world turns upside down from the moment his new winger turns to him in practice and says the words on his hip. “Thanks, uh, sorry, I don’t remember your name,” he replies, and the winger goes white.

“Did you just ⸻ “ the winger says, and then he’s yanking off his jersey to reveal those same words unfolding over his lower back. “You did, oh my god, this is amazing.”

“You knew my name already?” Jack asks, a little bowled over by how fast this is happening.

The winger grins. “You’re  _ Jack Zimmermann _ , everybody knows you. I’m Kent. We’re gonna be legendary, I can tell.”

Looking back, that first meeting set up their entire relationship: Kent always in too deep, Jack always a step behind his latest brilliant idea. It’s Kent who drags Jack to parties and Jack who lets himself be pulled along, an enticing hint of boozy excitement trailing along their bond. It’s Kent who proposes extra practices, reminding Jack that if they want to be the first pair drafted together in hockey history, they have to make it clear that each is indispensable to the other. But it’s Jack who first leans in for a kiss, and Kent who pulls away.

“Are you sure, Zimms?” he asks, the bond emanating a feeling best summed up as  _!!!!!!?????  _ and a fair amount of concern. “You’re freaking out, man. There’s this, like, knot of, I don’t even know. But there’s something there, and it’s big, and it’s bad.”

Jack manages a grin. “Just a little nervous about this. About us. But it’s better now,” he says, and pulls Kent in again.

Supposedly, you can’t lie to your soulmate. Jack’s breaking expectations all over the place lately. Kent knows Jack takes pills for his anxiety, but he doesn’t know that Jack’s on twice the recommended dose. He doesn’t know that Zoloft and Natty Light aren’t supposed to mix. He doesn’t know that despite all the therapy and meds and sex, Jack still lies awake at night terrified of the future.

It gets easier and easier to hide things from Kent as time goes on. Jack just doesn’t think about anything he’s worried about when Kent is there. He’s happy around Kent. He’s fine around Kent. Then Kent leaves for his billet family or a presser and all Jack’s fears race back in.

“It’s okay, Jack,” Kent says when he catches him shaking at the sight of another fucking article comparing their draft prospects. “We’ve got the Parson-Zimmermann no-look one-timer patented, remember? They’d be insane to separate us.” Kent’s radiating earnest calm and an itching need to make this, make Jack, better. Jack doesn’t bother telling him that it’s a lost cause.

By the time Jack overdoses, he’s sick and tired of hiding from Kent. His Zoloft isn’t working, his Xanax “for emergencies” isn’t working, his breathing exercises are failing him, and as Jack slips out of consciousness, he feels a moment of pure terror that this time he took too much. He was scared of the draft, sure, but god, he never wanted to skip it like this.

Jack finds out later that Kent found him passed out on the floor, nearly choking on his own puke, and could barely call 911 through his tears. He hears from his new intake specialist that the EMTs had to drag Kent away from him. He finds out from the paper at his door that Kent went first in the draft. He feels nothing through their bond; Las Vegas to Montreal is too far to feel much beyond a vague discontent. And that must just be coming from Jack, anyway. Why would Kent be upset when he’s just gotten everything he ever wanted?

That lack of feeling gives Jack an out, though.  You can’t break a bond, but you can run from it. You can move across a continent so it’s weaker, you can crush it down, refuse to send anything to your soulmate or acknowledge any feelings they give you. That’s how Jack gets through coaching peewee hockey and slowly climbing the ranks at Samwell while his best friend leads a winning franchise. And it works pretty well until Kent shows up his sophomore year.

That moment, Jack learns why it’s impossible to break a soul bond. He takes one look at Kent, standing there uninvited in his Haus, with his friends, and all his nightmares from the age of seventeen come rushing back. Kent’s just chatting with Shitty like nothing’s ever changed, like he has any right to come here. And the bond tells Jack that Kent is fucking ecstatic to be here.

Time to burst that bubble, then. “Shits, can you go inside?” Jack grits out, and both Shitty and Kent turn to him. “Now. Please.”

Shitty does, looking a little surprised at Jack’s attitude, and then it’s just Jack and Kent. Jack can feel the nerves coming off of Kent, and that’s a surprise. Jack would have expected Kent to be all smugness and smirks.

“Why are you here?” Jack asks. No point wasting time with pleasantries when Kent can feel perfectly well how pissed off he is.

Kent just looks at him. Jack feels his worry, his care, his need to make this better, just like back in Juniors. Jack might as well be choking on it.

“You know, don’t you?” Kent says, and it’s not really a question. Jack’s hit with a wave of longing, desperation even, thick and cloying like one of his grandmere’s overwrought romance novels. “The Aces are cool, but nobody plays like you, and the desert’s too hot, and I don’t know anyone.”

“You had more friends than anyone else in Juniors.”

A hint of irritation hits the bond. “You know what I mean, Jack. I don’t know anybody there like I know you. You don’t know anybody here like you know me. And no offense, these guys are great? But I don’t see any NHL material.”

Jack’s furious now, and Kent must feel it from the way he steps back. “So that’s how it is, eh? You come to my school unannounced and uninvited, you make nice with my friends and you shit-talk them behind their backs, you shit-talk the program I put two years of my life into, and now what? Am I supposed to run off to Vegas with you?”

“I….” There’s a misery and confusion rising in the bond, and Jack can’t stomach it.

“Don’t you fucking tell me you didn’t think this through before you bought a plane ticket halfway across the country to rub your success in my face, Parson.”

“It’s not like that!” Kent’s almost yelling now. “You didn’t call, you didn’t text ⸻ I wouldn’t have known you were alive if your parents didn’t email me. It’s been four years, and you’re my soulmate, and you haven’t talked to me once, and I fucking miss you.”

“Do you,” Jack says. It’s not a question. “I think it’d be better if you didn’t come by again, Kent.”

“But ⸻ ”

“But I’m your soulmate? Fine. But I don’t miss you. Go home, Parse.” He sends everything he’s feeling through the bond, all the anger and mistrust and even the fear, and Kent flinches. Good.

“See you around, then, Zimms,” Kent says, and he climbs back into his rented Jaguar.

“The fuck was that about?” Shitty asks as Jack walks back into the Haus.

“Nothing,” Jack says. “Nothing important.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, we all know Jack can be absolutely brutal. He hated Bitty for most of the kid's freshman year and as per Shitty, he was a dick to Parse the first time he showed up at the Haus (Jack's sophomore year, nor Bitty's). I wanted to explore that side of him and figure out why Parse, a canonically modest bro, was such an absolute tool to Jack during the Epikegster.  
> I also wanted to subvert the canonical model of soulmates because frankly, I can't stand the idea of soulmates in most fandoms. I figure Parse and Jack have always grokked each other and gotten under each other's skin, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. That kind of deep imprint on somebody's life doesn't happen with just anybody.  
> Also, somewhere slightly off-camera, Ransom and Holster are in the beginnings of the most epic D-man soulmate (b?)romance the world has ever known, and I would have written that instead, except I like pain.


	3. Don't Stop Us Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric never quit figure skating, but he made it to Samwell anyway. He likes the atmosphere and the classes, especially one cute boy in his history seminar. When Jack offers to teach Eric how to skate, he somehow forgets he's an international figure skating champion and agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Six of tumblr user softkent's [14 Days of Love fic-a-thon:](http://softkent.tumblr.com/love-fest) surprises gone wrong!  
> This chapter is Zimbits, and major characters include Jack and Bitty.  
> I'm not even going to waste your time with a link, you and I both know the title of this chapter is from the Yuri On Ice theme song.

It all started because Katya decided to have mercy on Eric and let him take morning classes this semester. WGSS120 was an amazing class, Professor Atley had the coolest stories about how postwar industrialization led to compulsive female domesticity, and his seatmate wasn’t the worst thing to see at 9:30 AM every Tuesday and Thursday. He would have almost been dreamy if he had the slightest knack for small talk. As it was, Eric didn’t even have a name to go on, just intent blue eyes and an ass that even the baggiest of shorts couldn’t mask. 

One day, Eric decided to drop a hospitality bomb on the guy and see if he could coax a response out of him. They were both consistently early to class, so Eric budgeted ten minutes for a brief chat before class started and turned to Cute Guy with a winning smile on his face.

“So how about that reading, huh? I thought it was fascinating how cake mix became a prestige thing- everyone in my family bakes, and I don’t think we’ve used a box mix in forty years.”

“Yeah,” the guy said, “I think it had something to do with the scientific advancements they made in food preservation for the troops. Shelf stabilization wouldn’t have been nearly as achievable in earlier years.”

Miraculously, once you got onto a clear subject, Cute Guy was actually a decent conversationalist. Eric found himself losing track of time as they dissected last night’s chapters of Marling. 

“And the American National Exhibition anecdote!” he giggled. “Who can even tell the difference between Russian and American Coke?”

“I bet it’s easier with all of the Soviet Union breathing down your back. ‘Da, cola of Mother Russia is vkusno!’”

“Nice accent,” Eric told Cute Guy. 

“Really? Thanks, I’ll have to tell Geno. He’s always knocking my Russian. He’s, uh, a friend of my dad’s, and we both play hockey.”

“So that’s what your weird doodles are? Hockey plays?”

“Yeah, I’m captain of the hockey team here. We’re not half bad, if I say so myself.”

“Wow,” Eric enthused, “you must be a pretty good skater, then.”

“Yeah, I guess. I could teach you sometime, if you want. I’m Jack, by the way,’ Cute Guy said.

Eric was about to inform Jack that he was a nationally ranked figure skater — world-class, thank you very much — and needed to spend all his free time getting ready for his next competition, so he would have to decline. But at that moment, Professor Atley walked into the room. 

“That sounds great!” Eric replied, and his thoughts turned to the food of the day — aspic and Jello molds — before he could realize what he’d just said. Somehow, he walked out of the class with an invite to go skating at Faber just before Eric’s daily, gruelling afternoon practice the next Friday. He’d have to pretend he’d never seen a rink in his life right before Katya spent two hours glaring at his latest attempt to land a quad Salchow.   
He was so screwed. 

The day that Eric was going to “learn how to skate,” he threw his oldest, dullest skates into a bag with the heavy winter clothes beginners always seemed to wear to rinks. They’d probably be good padding if he took a fall. On second thought, better not to push it that far — he might break something, and Four Continents wasn’t that far away. He could be a good amateur, right?

Jack met him at Founders and they started a leisurely walk to Faber. “I can show you the way if you’ve never been,” Jack had offered in class, and Eric had figured he might as well pretend to be a total newbie. 

They talked about nothing in particular on the way to the rink, and once there, Eric fell into the first of many conundrums. How inexperienced was he supposed to be with lacing his skates? He couldn’t look like he knew what he was doing, but if he made a mistake he was liable to twist an ankle. 

“I can help you with your skates, if you want,” Jack said, breaking through Eric’s mental fog. He tied the laces neatly and tightly, giving the blades a little frown. “Where’d you get figure skates from?”

“Borrowed a pair from a roommate’s friend,” Eric lied easily. 

“Well, I don’t know what that weird claw bit is for, so we’ll have to ignore it and hope you know better than I do. I’ve only ever been in hockey skates, I’m afraid.”

‘That weird claw bit,’ honestly. Were all hockey players like the ones in The Cutting Edge?

Eric wobbled his way onto the ice, thinking about how he’d skated when he was nine and just laced up his first pair of figure skates. He’d thrown his center of balance all over the place, and needed to adjust his footing every five seconds, couldn’t even stand still. He tried his best to emulate his younger self now.

It must have worked from how Jack skated right over to help him maintain his balance. “You just need to keep your balance,” Jack said, “and try to glide without thinking about it too much. Do you need help?”

“I think so,” Eric said, exaggerating his wobble even more. His sense of professional pride was a little wounded, but it was all worth it when Jack grabbed his hand. 

“We can skate like this until you get the hang of it, if that’s okay,” Jack said.

Eric had never been more okay in his life, including the day he won Southern Junior Regionals. “Yeah,” he managed, “this is good.”

They skated laps around Faber and Eric slowly dropped his newbie persona, although it was fun to pretend he was about to fall just to feel Jack grab him harder. “You’re pretty good at this for a beginner,” Jack said, thirty minutes into their skate, “and you carry yourself really well. You think you’ve gotten the hang of stopping?”

“Yeah, probably,” Eric said, and let go of Jack’s hand for a moment. “Wanna see me try?”

It was a little weird, stopping with the edge of the blade like a hockey player instead of with a pick, but he managed just fine. Jack looked on with as much awe as if Eric were Wayne Gretzky, or whoever that guy from the Penguins was. Mad Bob? Rad Bob? Something like that.

He and Jack spent a while longer just skating around and talking about nothing, when Eric’s phone beeped in his pocket. He pulled it out to see a text from Katya:  _ going to be late today, traffic. when you’re done seducing the hockey brute get to work on that quad Sal. _

“Um, I think we have to wind it up, Jack,” Eric said. “I have a practice to be at, I dance sometimes.” Which was true, even; he spent hours every week practicing ballet moves, so why did it feel like a lie?

Jack agreed to head out, and they swapped numbers to talk in the future, maybe about collaborating on ideas for Atley’s final. It was a good hang-out, Eric thought. Maybe even a good date, if Jack weren’t probably straight. He laced up his good skates and headed back onto the ice. After some light stretches, Eric started to work on his quad Salchow. Everything vanished except the ice, his annoyingly uncooperative muscles, and the rotations he needed.

He finally landed the quad on his fifth try, barely fifteen minutes into practice. Eric turned around, beaming in triumph, expecting to see Katya’s slightly-less-dour “that was satisfactory” look. Instead he saw Jack staring at him in shock. 

“You — I — I was going to watch some tape, after, and the TV is in the hockey office which is on the other side of the building,” Jack stammered. “I wasn’t, you know, stalking or anything.”

Lord, Eric was finna start stammering himself. “I’m kind of a figure skater?” he said, hating the way it came out like a question. “I mean, a good one. Internationally ranked and everything.”

“So you pretended you couldn’t skate because…?”

“Mainly? Because you’re super cute and I kind of forgot I knew how to skate when you asked,” Eric admitted. 

“So this was a date?” Jack asked. “I mean, I was hoping, but I didn’t want to make assumptions just because of how you look. And I figure I come off as straight, so…”

“I wanted it to be a date, at least,” Eric said. “I think if we both wanted it to be a date, then it was one?”

“Good,” Jack grinned. “I do need to watch that tape, but I’

“And I’ll be here for a good two hours, if you want to watch.”

“God, really?” Jack said. Eric got the feeling that he was a little impressed.

“Four Continents waits for no man, Jack. Now scoot, I have to be able to do this quad Sal in my sleep by February or Katya will have my hide. See you in class?”

“You’ve got my number, right?” Jack asked. “I’ll text you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Jack and Bitty are talking about is [ _As Seen On TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s,_](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674048836) by Karal Ann Marling.  
>  Yes, Geno is Evgeni Malkin. "вкусный" really ought to be transliterated as "vkusna" but we've all seen Yuri On Ice and I didn't want to confuse anybody.


	4. Got Your Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ransom and Holster have unofficially adopted Bitty ever since the first week of his freshman year. They've helped him learn drinking games, taken him out for PSLs, and protected him from the rage of Pre-Season Jack. But finding Bits a perfect Winter Screw date proves to be their toughest challenge yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 of tumblr user softkent's [ 14 Days of Love fic-a-thon: team love! Title is the eponymous SMH team motto. This chapter is gen, and main characters include Ransom, Holster, and Bitty.](http://softkent.tumblr.com/love-fest)

In retrospect, Ransom and Holster could never figure out whose idea it was to adopt Bitty. Sure, Holster had been the one to give him his hockey name, but Ransom showed him where all the campus Starbucks spots were. It was Ransom who helped Bitty with his chem homework, but Holster who always respected Eric’s burning need for drunk karaoke. 

Shitty was the one to lead the frog tour, but Rans and Holtzy spent the most time around the Haus, watching the new kids try and make their way through Samwell. The other frogs in Bitty’s year were either locals, or Ollie and Wicks, who already had roughly 37 different types of bro fistbumps for any given occasion.. 

The only thing the two of them could agree on later was that one of them had seen a painfully awkward, tiny Southerner with nobody to give congratulatory firstbumps to, turned to the other, and said “Dude. This frog needs our help.”

It was definitely Ransom who sidled up to Bitty after his first practice with the full intensity of Pre-Season Hockey Monster Jack and asked, “So, Bits, everything okay?”

Bitty sniffled a little. “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he said.

“Sweet, brah, ‘cause I heard they’re finally putting PSLs back on the menu and I didn’t wanna go by myself. You down?”

“Sure,” Bitty had replied, and neither of them knew they were starting a tradition that would even make Holster a little jealous. 

Hockey Shit With Ransom And Holster was another way to help Bitty out. He might have the sport down pat, but two years in a no-checking league in Georgia didn’t hold a candle to the mountain of history, pop culture, and memes that Bitty had missed out on. As Holster bellowed with indignation when he found out, Bitty had “never even seen the Mighty goddamn Ducks, man, this is an emergency, we’re starting movie night right this fucking second!”

It was only natural that Rans and Holster would support Bitty on his first kegstand. They would have done the same for any frog’s ceremonial first kegstand. They would not, however, have instructed just any frog in the sacred ways of pong. And flip cup. And Edward 40 Hands. And some white nonsense that Ransom wasn’t going anywhere near. 

“Bits, d’you know how to play Stump?” Holster slurred out after one round of pong too many, in Ransom’s humble opinion. “We could totes teach you. All we need is, like, a stump, and some beer, and a hammer and some nails.”

“And a different pre-med student to patch your fuckups back together, because I’m not having it,” Ransom warned him. “I swear to god, what kind of upstate redneck bullshit…”   
All of Ransom and Holster’s Bitty-bro-hood would be for nothing, though, if they failed their latest mission. A guy who was as kickass a dancer and amazing a baker as Bitty deserved only the finest of Winter Screw dates, and the two of them had been looking up potential candidates for months. The process involved a three-step interview, extensive Facebook stalking, and some shit with spreadsheets that Holster would never understand no matter how many times Ransom explained it to him. 

But their tried and true techniques, which had landed dates for even the pickiest of Zimmermanns, were falling short now.The two of them couldn’t find a single girl on campus who baked, was decently attractive, had an actual personality, and wouldn’t be scared off by all the weird fratty shit the SMH got up to, and that wasn’t for lack of trying.    
The other problem, which got Ransom muttering darkly about stats every time it came up, was that there were just too many unknown variables. Did Bitty have any eye color preferences? Hair type? Common interests? Did he like tall girls or did he think that too much of a height difference was weird? Normally Holster got the frogs started on a particularly dating-oriented game of Never Have I Ever and Ransom tabulated the results, but Bitty was a “never” on freaking everything. 

There was nothing for it but to outright ask what Bitty’s type was. They cornered him in the kitchen, promised the hottest Winter Screw date anyone had ever seen, and waited with bated breath to hear their new goal. 

Instead of a simple “brunettes” or “girls with muscles,” they got a stammering, quiet coming-out. “I appreciate everything you’re doing for me, I really do,” Bitty said, “but I think you might be wasting your time because, well, I’m gay?”

“Oh. Cool,” Ransom said.

“Yeah, I think Jack mentioned it a few weeks back, but then he segued right into how the caf was serving chicken tenders that day and you know how rare Chicken Tender Day is,” Holster added.

“Wait, bro, hold on, this is totally ‘swawesome,” Ransom said, getting a feel for the lay of the land. “Bits, do you have any idea how many dudes at Samwell are into dudes?”

“It’s not all of them, much to our dismay,” Holster informed a somewhat perplexed Bitty, “but at  _ absolute least _ I’mma go with 40 percent. And we know all the queer athletes on campus.”

“Oh my god! Holtzy! That one rower!”

“The Australian one who likes short dudes?” Holster asked.

“Ab-so-fucking-lutely. Bits, you’ll love him, he’s like six-seven and he’s got this amazing accent and — why are you hiding under the table?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The vast majority of these incidents are based on actual things that happened either in Twitter or in the extras. Bitty and Ransom do go out for PSLs on the regular and he really did come out after being confronted about what he wanted in a Winter Screw date (in an extra, not canon). Also, it was Ransom who canonically started the #BetterBittyBootyBureau and #blessed us all.  
> [ Stump is a real game,](http://unofficialnetworks.com/2011/06/stump-greatest-drinking-game) and it is definitely white people bullshit. Do not take my linking instructions as an endorsement. Edward 40 Hands is real too, as is its champagne-using cousin, Edward Classy Hands.


	5. Day 8: What You Are Is Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Eight of tumblr user softkent's [ 14 Days of Love fic-a-thon:](http://softkent.tumblr.com/love-fest) Single and Bitter!  
> This chapter has the same ships as canon, with a little Holsom thrown in. Main characters include the SMH, minus the Frogs, with a special appearance from Johnson.  
> Title is from Tegan and Sara because I'm just that predictable.

As was normally the case, at least to anybody who asked, Shitty started it. The weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day were never a good time to be a Wellie, but this year the literal entire hockey team was going through a dry spell.   
“Except for me,” Johnson pointed out when Shits voiced his frustration. “I’ve been dating this girl for two years, now, canonically. ‘Course, that was only ever mentioned in a tweet and there are those who surmise that any add-ons to a work shouldn’t be considered part of the original material—“  
“Fuck off, man,” Holster said without much bite. “You’re one of Samwell’s 50 Most Beautiful and you’re practically married, you don’t get in on this pity party.”  
Johnson sighed. “I guess you’re right. The author only brought me in for a moderately amusing in-joke because they’re suffering from writer’s block, anyway. I’ve overstayed my welcome.”  
“Whatever the hell that meant, anyway,” Ransom said after Johnson sauntered out. “You know what we should do, Holtzy?”  
“Can’t throw a kegster, nobody’s gonna show up,” Holster told him.  
“I wasn’t thinking kegster, bro, but since you are…”  
Jack sighed without looking up from Coming Out Under Fire. “No pointless kegsters in the middle of the season, boys. Can’t believe I have to say it.”  
“Pointless? There’s no better reason to get shitfaced than being forever alone in the middle of all this Valentine’s Day bullshit.”  
“Yeah, Jack, don’t mock our pain.”  
“Hold on,” Shitty said, “didn’t you break up with Camilla a few weeks back? The fuck are you still single for, with an ass like that?”  
In the blink of an eye, Jack went from disapproving captain to stammering wreck. “I — well — hockey, and… practice, is a lot, really, and homework.... Uh, hockey…”  
“Right,” Holster drawled, “he’s single because whoever put his hat-trick programming in dislodged the Basic Human Conversation drive.”  
“Fuck you too, Holster.”  
“Excuse you, Jack, I’m just a bro trying to plan a pity party for his best bros, and — wait, is Lardo single again?” Holster asked.   
“She and Elena were ‘on a break’ last semester, and then Elena cheated on her and said she wanted an open relationship,” Shitty supplied. “Didn’t you notice all the bleeding-cow-heart paintings? She says her exhibition theme this year is ‘love is dead.’”  
“Honestly?” Ransom said. “I thought it was just her normal art goth shit.”  
“Great, Lardo’s forever alone too, we can be alone together, now let’s focus on the party, OK?” Holster said. “I have plans for this shit.”  
“Brah, no,” Shitty told him. “This isn’t the kind of thing you plan. We don’t need pong or Edward 40 Hands or a hundred strangers in the Haus. What we need is to get everyone wine drunk and cry into Bitty’s pies about how nobody will ever love us.”   
“Oh, and let’s do it on the fifteenth!” Ransom said, perking up a little bit. “There’s gonna be a metric fuckton of —”  
“Clearance chocolate, shit yeah, bro!” Holster finished for him.   
That half-assed plan led to their current predicament. It was all well and good to say you were gonna drown your sorrows in white-chick drinks and clearance chocolate, but it was remarkably hard to get wasted without pong or flip-cup to facilitate mass alcohol consumption. Ransom had googled “drinking games no equipment,” Jack had vetoed strip poker, and here they were.  
“Okay,” Holster said, “most likely to have a threesome with Hall and Murray- go!”   
Bitty, Lardo, and Holster all pointed at Ransom. Holster and Shitty pointed at Jack.   
“Oh, fuck you guys,” Ransom said, taking three swigs of his entire bottle of rosé. Jack pointedly sipped his Gatorade.  
“What are you even getting out of this if you aren’t drinking, man?” Shitty asked.  
“Hydration is important. Plus, somebody has to make sure this doesn’t get out of hand,” Jack replied.   
“Too late,” Lardo said. “Okay, most likely to die in a Nursey-related accident.”  
“No point asking when Dex isn’t here,” Bitty pointed out. “Either he’d be closest in proximity or he’d have a coronary screaming at Nursey about it.”  
“True though,” Ransom said. “Aight, everybody drink, since Dex isn’t here to do it.”  
“You know what we should have done?” Holster said after downing around half a pint of pinot grigio in one go. “We should have just fucking dated each other. Like, Rans, you and I could just take each other to that couples’ fair on the quad, and Shitty could actually get somewhere with Lardo —”  
“Fuck off, Holtzy,” Shitty said.  
“—and the frogs could work out their sexual tension,” Holster finished as if Shitty hadn’t said anything.   
“‘Kay, but that leaves Jack and Bits in the lurch, dude,” Ransom said.  
“Well, obvi, Bitty’s in the kitchen baking his ass off to ‘All Things Go’ and Jack’s in his room judging us.”  
“Sounds like a plan.”  
By next Valentine’s, Jack and Bitty were somewhere in Providence, hiding from the auspices of the Sin Bin. Shitty and Lardo had finally stopped screwing around and started screwing each other. Nursey and Dex were… doing whatever it was that the two of them did. But Holster and Ransom totes went to the couples’ fair, albeit in a different way than they’d thought.


	6. Day 9: If I Knew Then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching Falconers TV has become a Haus tradition. Half of the SMH crowds in the Haus every time a new video comes out, to cheer Jack on and pick the video apart. But when he starts in a Falcs TV video himself, Bitty finds that he might be able to dish it out, but he can't take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day nine of tumblr user softkent's [14 Days of Love fic-a-thon:](http://softkent.tumblr.com/love-fest) Falconers TV!  
> This chapter has some background Zimbits, and major characters include Bitty and Lardo.  
> Title is from ["Coconut Oil"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LPUllv_Uak) by Lizzo.

Bitty might have been the first Falconers TV fan on the team, followed closely by Ransom’s massive Tater obsession, but he’s far from the last. What had started out as a casual viewing at breakfast soon turns into a Haus-wide tradition, with half of the SMH gathering to watch every new video as avidly as they watched Jack’s games. And naturally, this being the SMH, they tear every video to shreds in the process.

“Tater’s right, his falcon looks like a diseased rabbit.”

“How do you draw that shitty a falcon when there’s a giant painting of the logo right on the wall?”

“Come on, boys, he tried his best,” Bitty normally intervenes, whether the ‘he’ he’s defending happens to be Tater or Jack or Thirdy.

“Yeah, you would say that, Bits.”

“’I wish I could bake a cake,’” Holster says, ‘”full of rainbows and smiles, and everyone would eat it and be happy.’”

There’s a lot of razzing Bitty, either for his constant support of every team member or his endless knowledge about the same, but it’s fun. It’s good, not having to restrain his comments about Snowy’s latest injury or the funny thing Tater said last practice.

One day, at the normal time for a new Falconers Faceoff to come out, Bitty doesn’t head into the living room to watch with everyone else. He may or may not have locked his door, and he’s not answering his phone.

Nobody does a thing about this except for Lardo, who walks up the stairs and knocks on Bitty’s door like it’s nothing. “You okay in there, Bits?” she calls.

“Uh, fine, thanks,” Bitty calls back. Lardo is familiar with a wide and varying range of “I’m fine”s from Bitty. This isn’t the wiping-away-quiet-tears “fine” or the smiling-on-the-outside, screaming-on-the-inside “fine.” It’s not even the moderate-level-of-hockey-related-anxiety “fine.” No, this is Bitty’s embarrassed “fine,” and by god, Lardo’s not going to force him downstairs like that.

“Something wrong?” Lardo asks. There’s a pause, but that’s nothing new.

Bitty sighs. “Not really, just… the Falcs asked if I wanted to be in a publicity spot and I said yes, and that’s the one that’s airing today. And I thought I could handle that — I’ve got my vlog and everything — but it just hit me, you know?”

Lardo doesn’t know, but she’s willing to guess. “That must have been really important to you,” she says. “And to Jack.”

“Yeah, I guess I… can you come in?” Bitty asks. “I don’t want all the boys listening and it’s a little weird, you know, talking through a door.”

Lardo walks in. The door wasn’t locked, she notes. She sits at Bitty’s desk and puts on her best listening face.

“Yeah,” Bitty says, “it’s really important to Jack. It’s introducing me to the team, formally, at least, and showing that I’m an important part of Jack’s life. And maybe a little bit more than plain old important?”

“Bitty,” Lardo says. “Is this a coming out video?”

“Not really? I mean, it’s not just me in the video. Jack was really adamant that he wasn’t going to single himself out like that, that his sexuality shouldn’t make him different even when he’s disclosing it. So it’s a ‘Meet the WAGs’ kind of video. Except this time it’s “Meet the SADs.’”

Lardo blinks. “Like the disorder?”

“’Spouses And Dates.’ Jack came up with it himself so the title wouldn’t be heteronormative,” Bitty says. “He’s very proud of it.”

“So he’s coming out by introducing his boyfriend to the world, and you’re walking out of the closet with him,” Lardo says. She wonders how she’d feel if Camilla were to come out to the world by introducing everyone to her girlfriend, Larissa Duan, goes to Samwell University and usually hangs out with jocks. “And you’re okay with that?”

“It’s been a long time coming,” Bitty replies. “Jack’s wanted to come out for a while now, I’ve been the one holding him back. And, you know, I came out to my parents last month, everybody who matters already knows. So I figured, we’ve been doing things my way for so long, why not try Jack’s?”

“That’s not answering the question, though,” Lardo points out. “The boys are about to watch your not-a-coming-out-video and you’re hiding up here.”

“It’s just… it’s a lot, to know I can’t take this back. And of course we’ve already talked about it, I was fine when Jack asked and I was fine when we filmed it, but I got to thinking when I remembered the boys were gonna watch it. You know how they take every video apart?”

“Your bros aren’t gonna talk smack about you, Bits,” Lardo reassures him.

“It’s not the boys I’m worried about, you know?” Bitty says. “It’s everybody else, everybody who’ll be watching the video and dissecting it and probably rating all the SADs, and everybody who’ll be homophobic about it. And you know they’ll be able to find my vlog, we linked to it in the video for a promo, which in retrospect may have been a horrible idea, and it’s just, it’s so much I hadn’t thought about.”

“Does Jack know the video’s doing this to you?”

Bitty waved a hand in the direction of his phone, which was lighting up with what were probably supportive texts from a perfectly loving boyfriend. “He knows, but he doesn’t really get it, you know? He’s been in the public eye literally since he was a baby, and I’ve been out of it for so long. I just wanted a few more minutes of relative anonymity, I guess.”

“You think you might be better if you just don’t watch this one right away?” Lardo asks.

“But it’s tradition!” Bitty protests.

“It’s a tradition that’s giving you an anxiety attack,” Lardo says. “I’ll tell the boys you aren’t up to it, and you can watch on your own time, yeah?”

Bitty thinks about it for a moment. “I just feel like that would be… I don’t know, cowardly, somehow? I mean, I’ve already gone this far, better see it through, right?”

“Listen to me, Bitty,” Lardo says in her sternest manager voice. “You’re freaking out. I’d be a shitty manager and a worse friend to let you go downstairs like this.  I don’t think you should see that video until you’re good and ready, and right now? You’re totes not.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Bitty admits. “I’ve done enough as is. I think I might call Jack in a bit.”

“Sounds good. I’ll go deal with the boys,” Lardo says. “Don’t come down until the screams have died out.”

Bitty smiles a little at that. “You’re the best manager,” he says.

“Damn right I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to Google four different ways to find that freaking Mean Girls quote properly, I hope you're happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic! You can find me on tumblr at [ontologicalprior,](http://ontologicalprior.tumblr.com/) my Check, Please! sideblog, or [sendasalami.](http://sendasalami.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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